Friday, May 6, 2016

Tomorrow
is Mother’s Day in Australia. I would actually love it if we could get a global
Mother’s Day – an International Day of the Mother. UK Mothering Sunday is
linked to Easter and the Christian calendar and this year was March 6th,
whereas Australia and New Zealand follow the US custom of the second Sunday in
May, which is tomorrow.It is
unfortunate that the UK Mothering Sunday falls before the Australian
celebration in that it means my own mother’s chances of scoring a on time card
from this particular off shore offspring are remarkably low.

My
own Mother’s Day celebration tomorrow, is on paper, not shaping well.Drama Queen No.1 is in hospital
recuperating from an operation, Drama Queen No.2 is down at university in
Melbourne, recuperating from a night spent on a beach photographing a meteorite
shower and watching the phosphorescence in the waves, and Drama Queen No.3 is
spending the night at a friend’s place so I am going to wake up with no
daughters in residence – BUT IT GETS MUCH WORSE – because actually celebration
of motherhood and the implied goal of me getting my just rewards in terms of
cake and champagne does not actually require offspring physically present – I
am quite capable of quaffing it with Husband or on my own. The disaster is the result of a move
that only I could make, I have somehow scheduled for Monday morning, the
routine, age related, something it would be good to do, colonoscopy that I have
been gently, and rightly, nagged into by my GP.

This
fatal flaw on the timing front means that as per the instruction sheet, not
only am I taking a variety of what I presume are laxatives – and I must confess
to some worries about the speed and ferocity at which they work, based on the advice
to stay close to a toilet, but I also have to exist on a clear liquid diet for
24 hours before the procedure, which effectively scuppers any hopes of a
Mother’s Day high tea or indeed knees up.I did phone the doctor’s receptionist in the vain hope champagne might
qualify on the clear liquid front – it does, but sadly fails the no alcohol
test.

The
upside is that I console myself that I am so lucky to live in a country with a
fabulous medical system that supports and cares for us as a family, and that I
am offered a test that could be invaluable in saving my life, so in the contest
between champagne and colonoscopy – I guess colonoscopy wins hands down – with
champagne afterwards naturally.

And
of course there is the fact that I feel very loved by the dramatic offspring
everyday of the year, so before I get absurdly sentimental I’d like pay homage
to Tom Lehrer who wrote one of the best songs about loving your mother –
Oedipus Rex – that contains one of my favourite lines “I’d rather marry a
duck-billed platypus”.